Two days away from home, hosted in a lovely setting on Quadra Island, with the focus being FABRIC...what more could I ask for? I left my family behind and my day-to-day chores to join my two friends, Terry (our hostess) and Ellen, for what we called our mini-retreat. I packed my tub with dyes, white fabric, stamps, and a collection of embellishment tools with the idea of creating fabric pieces in both new and tried-and-true methods.
Terry's new home, not yet completed to the stage of being move-in ready, was perfect for the 3 of us. Downstairs was our makeshift studio and upstairs were our living quarters. Her husband helped to rig up a hot and cold water sink, complete with a 5-gallon bucket underneath as our drainage system.
We busily tried a number of methods: wheat paste cracking, stamping and making stamps, carving stamps out of styrofoam trays, palette dyeing and folding. Using wheat paste was a new one for me. The sun cooperated by drying out the pasted fabric quickly, then I gently crushed it to get the "cracked" look. I painted over it with thickened dye to fill in the cracks. My results showed that I should have been more aggressive with my crushing, so I went ahead and tried it again. Terry drew a lovely picture into her wheat paste AND pressed lace into it which produced amazing results. This is one method I will definitely try again.
We stopped in time to spruce ourselves up a bit for a lovely dinner at the Heriot Bay Inn. What a treat to go out to dinner with friends.
Sunday was another day of more of the same. By day's end I was exhausted, but filled with a much needed burst of creative energy. We vowed to make it an annual event.
